JOHN DEMONT

How COVID helped me join the elders

My bubble threw me a birthday do the other day: my wife, son, and brother.

My daughter would have been there, but she has been hunkered down elsewhere in the province, so I waved to her on the iphone.

It was a fabulous time, pandemic or not. I was with people who matter to me. The grub was superb, so was the craic.

I should tell you, as well, that the raging coronavirus, rather than diminishing the experience, increased my enjoyment of the event.

Sweating about the bleak COVID-19 numbers this past week meant there was no psychic space left on Thursday to brood about becoming eligible for the old age pension.

So, turning 65 kind of snuck up on me in the same way that the American stand-up comic Moms Mabley described the arrival of old age, “You wake up one morning and you got it.”

I know, I know, Springsteen was 71 when he released his latest album, Biden, at 78, is making America great again, Anthony Hopkins was 83 last month, when he won his best actor Oscar.

Sixty-five is no longer the signal that it is time for the young to lead you out onto the ice flows to die.

I am thankful for that, even though I still need some sort of explanation of how this has happened.

Was it not just yesterday that I drove though these streets on a bicycle with a Topps baseball card clothes-pinned to the wheel spokes for sound effects?

Was there not a time when, on Friday night on a birthday weekend, I might be smoking wine-tipped cigarillos in the branches of the big tree in the middle of what is now known as the Conrose Park Playground — or stepping into the Piccadilly Tavern as the Bee Gees warbled about “stayin’ alive,” or greeting the dawn, at the end of a night of revelry, with the same sort of high spirits that now require eight hours in the sack, and a triple cappuccino?

Where did the days go when I never tired of running, jumping, and playing?

When I could work, it seemed, all day fuelled by caffeine, and thought six hours sleep was for weaklings?

The pandemic has taken the wind out of everyone’s sails. Even if it had not, us senior citizens do not rant and roar like we did when our hair was dark and our knees brand new.

It’s not so much the years as it is the miles. The hip replacement, which seems on the horizon for me is the price of nearly half a century of self-imposed physical abuse, which in hindsight seems absolutely worth it.

In my mind, my fellow seniors and I are wily veterans now, experienced, unflappable, and wise: the aging alto player brought out for that one signature solo; the late-career threepoint specialist subbed in when a team is down by two, with just seconds to go, in the hope that they can summon some long-ago magic.

This, you should know, is the kind of romanticizing that has plagued me for most of my long, long life. But I think that at 65, a person should be given a little licence, don’t you?

We have been around, after all. We have seen some things. What is more, we are not done quite yet, I am told.

It is a new world for me, elderdom, so the rules are a little unclear: What exactly are pilates, for instance?

Nevertheless, know that I am embracing rather than resisting my newfound venerable status: a touring bike of mine is in the shop getting a tune-up. I am even planning to sign up for an urban bicycling course to ensure that I see 66.

My birthday haul also included a pair of those casual Skecher shoes. They are slip-ons, which I like, and aircooled, which I guess is good.

It is my understanding, as well, that the soles are made of memory foam, which is the same stuff found in pillows.

Once that might not have mattered to me. Thursday, stepping into them for the first time, I swear that I sighed in pleasure, like a tired man descending into a hot bath.